Greater New Orleans

Alabama coach Nick Saban not only has won three national championships and had 16 first-round NFL draft choices, but his program consistently has had one of the best APR scores in the SEC.
(Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)

Every year when the NCAA releases its Academic Progress Rate report, I wonder if the APR scores are ever utilized in recruiting.

Does a coach breach that subject? Do you think a prospect or the parents/guardians of a prospect even understand APR enough to work it into the conversation?

When APR scores were released Wednesday, LSU was beating its chest because none of its 20 sports dipped to the 930 APR score that results in sanctions. The penalties range from a loss of scholarships, to a ban in postseason play, to a reduction in number of practices.

Eleven Tigers' sports improved their APR scores over the previous academic year, while six sports dipped and three stayed the same.

Twelve football programs nationwide received sanctions for a substandard APR, including seven historically black colleges being banned from post-season play. Four of those are SWAC members, adding fuel to the argument that schools with limited budgets for athletic academic support are at an APR disadvantage.

New Mexico State, which will visit Tiger Stadium in the upcoming season on Sept. 27 as one of LSU's 2014 non-conference buy-a-wins, received APR sanctions. It came in the form of reducing the number of times NMS can practice.

The Aggies were 2-10 last year. They need all the practice they can get.

Among SEC football programs, Missouri and South Carolina had a 980 APR (1000 is a perfect score). LSU was sitting back in a 10th place tie with Ole Miss at 946, a two-point improvement from last year for each school.

The release of the scores made me wonder what SEC football coaches could proudly use their programs APR scores as a recruiting tool.

How do you truly judge APR success? Is it the average score over the nine years since the inception of APR? Is it over the last five years? Is the number of consecutive years the APR has improved in a program?

If you went strictly with the nine-year average, Vanderbilt, which is no surprise because of its stringent academic standards, has the best APR in the SEC at 968.5. LSU is at 955, sixth in the 14-team league.

At very bottom is Arkansas at 934.8, along with Ole Miss at 936.3 and Tennessee at 936.5.

Schools that have showed consistent improvement in APR scores are the ones that can truly sell it in recruiting.

Research provided by the Higgins Institute of Numbers and Measures shows that Mississippi State's Dan Mullen, South Carolina's Steve Spurrier and Alabama's Nick Saban are masters of the APR.

Mississippi State is the only SEC football program that has seen its APR score rise all nine years. South Carolina scores have never gone backwards, improving eight years and failing to gain just once. Alabama's 975 score this year, down from 978 last year, marked the first time the Crimson Tide have taken a step back after eight straight years of marching upward.

From 2004-05 when the NCAA began recording APR until the present, South Carolina has improved a cumulative 69 points (911 in '04-'05 to 980 in Wednesday's release of the '12-'13 scores.) Alabama jumped 59 points (916 to 975) and Mississippi State leaped 54 (920 to 974).

LSU ranks eighth in cumulative improvement with 11 points (935 to 946), and has dipped 19 points in the last five years, the biggest drop of any SEC football program in that time frame.

Many times, APR scores head south because of constant head coaching changes leading to player defections.

A couple of prime examples are at Ole Miss and Tennessee. The Rebels' APR score in 2006-07 dropped 29 points because so many players left the program during the coaching switch from David Cutcliffe to Ed Orgeron.

Tennessee, which has had three coaches in the last five seasons, had a string of four consecutive years of declining APR before heading back in a positive direction the last two years.

One thing APR does is promote awarding more scholarships to walk-ons, many of which have some of the best grade point averages on a team.

I've had a couple of SEC coaches tell me several times after signing a walk-on that "he's a good kid that might be able to help us, but he sure boosts our APR score."